SOURCE: Ambler, Madge. “Ishmael Reed: Whose Radio Broke Down?” Negro American Literature Forum 6, no. 3 (fall 1972): 125-31.

In the following essay, Ambler contends that the major thematic concerns of Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down can be found in his poem “I Am a Cowboy in the Boat of Ra.”

To understand Ishmael Reed's Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, one must realize that Reed is a brilliant poet first and a novelist second.

The several themes of Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down are nearly all present in Mr. Reed's “I Am a Cowboy in the Boat of Ra.” The poem is reprinted below:

The devil must be forced to reveal any such physical evil (potions, fetishes, etc.,) still outside the body and these must be burned— RITUALE ROMANUM, published 1947, endorsed by the coat of arms and introduction letter from Francis Cardinal Spellman. 

I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra sidewinders in...